In the year 1773, after a period of almost total obscurity lasting 1500 years, the Scottish explorer, James Bruce, discovered in what is now Ethiopia, The Book of Enoch. He writes: "Amongst the articles I consigned to the library at Paris was a very beautiful and magnificent copy of the prophesies of Enoch, in large quarto; another is amongst the books of scripture that I brought home, standing immediately before the book of Job, which is its proper place in the Abyssinian Cannon: and a third copy I presented to the Bodleian Library at Oxford, by the hands of Dr. Douglas, the Bishop of Carlisle." It rested there, forgotten, until 1821 when Laurence issued his first translation of which there were many editions, culminating in the revised edition of 1883, compiled from notes in his estate.. As a former professor of Hebrew at Oxford, Laurence's familiarity with Kabbalah and the Zohar ( as shown in the introductions of earlier editions) gave him unique qualifications that were especially useful in translating a work of this type. The very profound and encyclopedic work on comparative religion and hermetic philosophy, The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, refers to this edition on 37 occasions. It is reprinted here verbatim.